Open House Party

We were happy to finally be able to welcome friends, family and neighbors into our home for an open house at the end of June (for whomever couldn't make it....you are welcome anytime!!). We worked right up until an hour or so before the party (I was still painting trim, etc. and finally we just had to stop somewhere). The party was a success and also marked the beginning of our hiatus from most projects. We still have a list of many items to complete, but most are small and not noticeable and will get done eventually!

Here are some of the highlights from the party, enjoy!

Spending some time with the first guests who arrived...

Me, Nini and Mom

Me and my coworker Jillian
Some of our guests enjoy the slide show of pictures of our renovations...
Hanging out in the kitchen! Martha, Katy, Peter, Aidan, Katherine and Stacy

The dining room spread
We were really lucky to have beautiful weather, so many of the partygoers spent time in our backyard...


The Rooneys and Tom

Carrie and Chris

Me and my bro

Cristina, me and Ellen

Kelly and the Rascoes enjoying the shade

Audrey, Matt and my dad

The Balfour Beatty crew

You can tell that Daniel enjoyed his chocolate chip cookie :)

Me, Mary and Colleen

Brothers

Loving our backyard!

Here's what the new kitchen window looks like with all the finishing touches!

Happy homeowners :)

June

June in November...as promised, here's my first attempt to catch you all up on the past few months. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving :)

We spent Memorial Day at Lake Anna enjoying the boat and the warm weather :)

Then some dumb lady ran a red light and hit my car. Seriously, just 3 months of driving it and I get in an accident. Thankfully it was minor and it's all fixed now. It was just reallllly annoying!

We painted our front door and replaced the door knob, a small improvement. I still hate the ugly flat steel door and want a replacement. But we haven't found anything that's the right size or the right price yet. I think we need to browse some places that recycle home items. We'll keep you posted.

We also finally got trim up in the rest of the house! Slowly, but surely...sometimes the little things seem to take the longest!

Trim in the bathroom...

and outside the bathroom...

and around the front door!

We hung up some curtains that I made in our bedroom. I used an extra bed skirt that I bought on sale so the pattern matches our bedspread. Love to see the finishing touches finally going up!

Final product, well almost, blinds will be replaced soon.

More trim replacement, in the dining room this time...

and around the door to the kitchen...

...on both sides!

And then we started to tackle the old kitchen window.

See the old weight on the right hand side. All the other windows in our house are original too (a project for another day! haha)

No more old window! Thankfully we had help from Jim's parents for this round of projects. We couldn't have done it without them! The window was in and out in one day!!

Jim working on the new window.

While I worked outside with Jim's mom on some landscaping...new hostas around the tree. Unfortunately, they didn't all survive, I don't think they liked the spot, so I just moved a few of them to the back in the fall.

We powerwashed the stairs to get rid of all the yucky old paint on them. A 110% improvement! We thought we were going to have to paint or stain the cement to cover up the old chipping paint on the steps. The power washer worked wonders and saved us from another project!

And we put in this new trim around the flowerbeds...

so much more curb appeal now!

Insulation is in around the window, while Jim and his Dad finalize installation.

Success!

The next day, with more help from Jim's parents, we picked right back up on projects...

I worked on some more landscaping...hanging the cute flower basket Jim's mom got us!

We spread a whole truckload of mulch...

And then planted some annuals...even more curb appeal! The front of the house so much better now :)

Jim and his dad started on the new front railing. This replaces the old, rusted iron railing that was falling apart. The wood railing looks so much better! Just needs a coat of paint.

Starting to come together...

Digging to put the bottom posts in...

You can see the final product of the front railing in the new pic at the top of the blog. Such an improvement!

More to come...next on tap are pictures from our open house party and then the rest of the summer and fall ;)

And of course a ton more pictures of Chip. Here he is trying to help put laundry away...

Mini Hiatus

So it's obviously not May anymore...I unintentionally took quite a break from the blog. We got bogged down in lots of house projects earlier in the spring/summer and then also took a hiatus from those for awhile, so in turn a hiatus from the blog made sense too. And now it's almost December--crazy! But I'm committed to updating you all on what we've done the past few months. There were some more projects and then some fun activities too. It may take me awhile, but I'll fill you in on our summer and fall in the near future. For now I'll leave you with a picture from when Chip's friend/cousin Buster came to stay with us. They took a break from chasing each other around and wrestling to pose for a picture for me :)